Florida's top lawmen take office

LEESBURG -- So many deputies turned out Tuesday to see Lake Sheriff Gary Borders take his oath of office that he jokingly wondered who was keeping tabs on crime in the county.

"I have no idea who's running the Sheriff's Office right now," Borders told a packed auditorium at Lake-Sumter Community College.

Borders, who was appointed sheriff following the 2006 death of Sheriff Chris Daniels, was sworn in to his first elected term as sheriff of Lake County. He won both the Republican primary and the general election by large margins last year.

Borders was one of many law-enforcement leaders sworn into office Tuesday -- sheriffs in Volusia, Seminole, Osceola and Polk also began new terms. Some, like Borders, opted for formal ceremonies while others chose more low-key ways to mark the day.

In Seminole, Sheriff Don Eslinger spent the first day of his fifth full term as sheriff by patrolling the county, where he "ran into the rudest 14-year-old I've ever met." The foul-mouthed teenager, who was skipping school, ended up being taken to the Juvenile Assessment Center, Eslinger said.

Eslinger has not had a swearing-in ceremony since a small private affair when he first took office in 1991. The only thing he does every four years, he said, is take care of paperwork with the Secretary of State.

Also Tuesday, R.J. Larizza, the new state attorney for Volusia's 7th Judicial Circuit, took his oath of office, followed by his cadre of assistant state attorneys and investigators, at the Flagler Auditorium in Palm Coast.

Larizza, a 50-year-old attorney from St. Augustine, said he chose the location because it was centrally located for the four-county circuit, which includes Volusia, Flagler, St. Johns and Putnam counties.

But Flagler was also the central location in the years-long controversy between outgoing prosecutor John Tanner and officers at the Flagler County Inmate Facility. The controversy became a key issue in Tanner's defeat.

On Tuesday, Larizza said: "This is where the healing begins. Flagler County was the firestorm. Flagler County was the place where things went terribly wrong."

Beginning his term in Flagler was "a symbol of a new beginning for the State Attorney's Office."

In Lake County, Leesburg police Chief Bill Chrisman lauded the man who was tapped by Gov. Jeb Bush to fill the unexpired term of Daniels, who died in a charity bus accident at the New Smyrna Beach Speedway.

"This is a win for the citizens of Lake County," Chrisman, who officiated at the ceremony, told the crowd.

Borders was joined on stage by his son Jason. After being sworn in by Lake County Tax Collector Bob McKee, the sheriff praised members of his department for their diligence and support.

"You could not pick a better group of men and women than the men and women of this agency," he said.